


No Longer Human

by FanficsbyVe



Category: Dark Souls (Video Games)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 04:29:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7419796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanficsbyVe/pseuds/FanficsbyVe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ciaran assassinates a target. One-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Longer Human

“Has the Lord of Sunlight seen fit to end my life, Lord’s Blade Ciaran?”

Ciaran doesn’t respond. After all, why should the hornet explain to the fly why it devours its prey? Indeed, Gwyn had sent her to eliminate this human knight, but the truth is, she doesn’t care about the reason. She never does.

By now, she has been on this man’s trail for days. She hasn’t been subtle in letting him know she was coming, leaving small clues around his house. It only took a few for him to become unsettled enough to flee, racing to the poorer parts of town to go unnoticed in the rabble there. Not that it works. His colorful armor makes him stand out like a sore thumb. And it is so much easier to kill someone quietly in the alleyways.

So she waits, in the shadows of Anor Londo’s shantytown, stalking her quarry under the cover of dark. She is a knight herself, but why bother to face this man yet? The purpose of the Lord’s Blades is to strike fear in the hearts of Gwyn’s enemies. What is possibly more frightening than not knowing where your murderer is?

Clearly, that mentality pays off. She can tell the man is nervous, fighting to hide the tremors wracking his body. He knows he’s going to die, but rather than pleading, which he likely knows is futile, he does what nearly all her victims do. They start flinging insults.

“You think Gwyn values you? An half-breed abandoned by her servant mother, an unneeded product of Lord Galib’s foolish dalliances? He only tolerates you because he doesn’t want to dirty his own hands! The moment he can, he will throw you aside like the unwanted bastard you are!”

In the shadows, Ciaran shakes her head. Why do her victims, the human ones especially, always think these tired, boring old slurs still have an effect on her? She has heard them all her life, from her days in the slums. An orphan, abandoned by her God father and human mother, unwanted by her mother’s kind for being an impure bastard. A child that would have likely been nothing, had she not been plucked from the streets by two merciful Silver Knights who decided she needed a home and raised her as the child they could never have. 

Their mercy and affection made all the difference and allowed her to walk among the Gods. Eventually, her life among the elite inspired her to become a Lord’s Blade. The training was grueling, but she persevered and managed to rise to the highest ranks and become a direct servant of the Lord of Sunlight himself. 

The abandoned half-breed from the slums is now someone, fully accepted by the Gods as one of their own. Yet even now, as one of Gwyn’s Four Knights, she is certain humans still say hateful words about her heritage behind her back. It matters little to her anymore. Rather, it has become comical, pathetic even. Yet the man doesn’t realize it yet.

“You are a mongrel among Gods, Ciaran! A dwarf literally walking among giants. Do you really think you could best me if it was a fair and honest fight? No, you are a hornet indeed! A vicious, little creature that just stings and flees!”

A small smile forms on the Lord’s Blade’s lips. She was just going to leap from the shadows and kill him quickly, but a challenge is hard to ignore. Especially from an arrogant knight. After all, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

She steps out of the darkness, striding towards her target calmly and confidently. He quickly notices and takes out his heavy broadsword. She cocks her head, reaching for her golden tracer, and then charges him.

The knight does what all large, heavy opponents do. He comes at her with broad, devastating sweeps. He is aggressive and bloodthirsty, wanting to win quickly and decisively. Another fool. Does he really think force and iron will keep the Lord’s Blade from finding him?

She dances around his blows, mocking him with every close call. She twirls her golden tracer in graceful arches, the weapon leaving a beautiful yellow afterglow. It makes the weapon easy to spot and the knight blocks its blows with ease, yet never realizing the true danger.

It’s there that her dark silver tracer comes into play. It only takes one quick stab between the chinks of the man’s armor, barely breaking the man’s skin. She swiftly leaps out of his range as soon as the blade hit home and she knows all she has to do is wait.

Indeed, it doesn’t take long for the knight to succumb. She had killed creatures far larger than him with this kind of poison. He too is soon on his knees, coughing and gasping for breath as the toxins quickly work their magic.

She watches, unmoved and uncaring, as he is about to leave this world. His eyes are invisible, but she can sense a mix of hatred and fear in them. In-between heaving, his mouth forms words and of course, they are ones of scorn.

“You don’t deserve your title as a knight. Underhanded strumpet, hiding behind poison and a mask... A suiting thing for a mongrel…”

Ciaran calmly walks up to him as he spits out those final words. Her gait is a casual one, as if she is merely talking a walk in the gardens. Her voice exudes a similar relaxed attitude as she gets close to him.

“All my life, humans have laughed at me…”

She lifts her porcelain mask ever so slightly, rendering her mouth visible. A gesture that has no true necessity. She simply wants her indifferent grin to be the last thing he’s going to see.

“Yet here is the thing. When they see me, humans never laugh for long…”

Those are the last words the knight hears before he finally croaks. She watches her handiwork for a moment, making certain he is indeed dead. She then searches his body for any money and other valuables, stripping them from his corpse and taking them with her. It will look like a robbery this way, the poison she used similar to that of thugs in the streets, and no one will suspect an assassination. Besides, the coin and rings make for a sweet additional reward.

The money is a good reason for Ciaran to do what she does, perhaps even more than the respect her status yields. After a lifetime of being tormented, bullied, spat on, ignored and ostracized, she wants nothing from humanity. After all, it were two silver knights, beings of the Godrace, that took her from the slums and raised her as if she were their own and as such, she has abandoned any affinity with the human blood in her veins long ago. 

Humans have never been kind to her. They see her as a mongrel and she sees them as nothing more than targets to kill. She had experienced first-hand how they take whatever they please and discard whatever they dislike. She sees no reason to harbor any respect for them at all.

The man in the alley is nothing but a handful of gold to her. Just another mocking tongue she gets paid to silence. It is a rewarding task, almost as rewarding as coming home to her lover and the Gods who do manage to treat her with dignity. His death will not keep her awake at night. Why should she? Humans cry for one another and as the man said so himself, he doesn’t consider her as such. Neither does she.


End file.
